“No one bade them do what they’d no right to do,” said Mrs. Grumble.

“They did,” replied Mr. Jeminy sensibly, “only what they were meant to do.  Youth was not made for the chimney corner, Mrs. Grumble.  And love is not all one piece.  We make it so, because we are timid and indolent.  We like to think that one rule fits everything; that everything is simple and familiar.  Even God, Mrs. Grumble, in your opinion, is an old man, like myself.”

“He is not,” said Mrs. Grumble.

“Yes,” continued Mr. Jeminy, “you believe that God is an old man, insulted by everything.  Now he has been insulted by Anna Barly, who did as she had a mind to.  Well, well . . .”

“No matter,” said Mrs. Grumble comfortably, “there’s the baby; you can’t get around that.”

“Mrs. Grumble,” said Mr. Jeminy earnestly, “I am going to Farmer Barly.  I am going to say to him, ’Let me have Anna’s baby, and we’ll say no more about it.’  Yes, that is what I am going to do.”

“Well,” gasped Mrs. Grumble, throwing herself back in her chair, “well, I never . . . so that’s it . . .  I can tell you this:  the day that baby comes into this house, I go out of it.  Why, who ever heard of such a thing?  No, indeed.”

“There,” she thought to herself, “that’s what comes of people like Mrs. Wicket.”

“Mrs. Grumble,” said Mr. Jeminy.

“I’ve no more to say,” said Mrs. Grumble.

“Mrs. Grumble,” pleaded Mr. Jeminy, “I am an old man.  There is nothing left for me to do in the world any more.  I am sure you would be pleased with Anna’s baby.  Let us do this much for youth; for the new world.”

“I declare,” cried Mrs. Grumble, “you’ll drive me clean out of my wits.  The new world . . . you mean Sodom and Gomorrah, more like.  The new world . . . sakes alive.”

“Mrs. Grumble,” said Mr. Jeminy, “the old world is dead and gone.  Let the young be free to build a new world.  It will be happier than ours.  It will be a world of love, and candor.  Perhaps it will be also a world of poverty.  That would not do any harm, Mrs. Grumble.”

“A fine world,” said Mrs. Grumble.  “At least, I won’t live to see much of it, I’ve that to be thankful for.”

“Finer than what it is,” retorted Mr. Jeminy, losing his temper, “finer than what it is.  Not the same, sad pattern.”

“The old pattern is good enough for me,” replied Mrs. Grumble.

“You’re a fossil,” said Mr. Jeminy.

Then Mrs. Grumble raised her voice in prayer.  “Lord,” she prayed, “don’t let me forget myself.  Because if I do . . .”

“Yes, that’s it,” cried Mr. Jeminy, “stop up your ears . . .”  And out he went in a rage.  Mrs. Grumble, left alone, looked after him with flashing eyes and a heaving bosom.  “Oh,” she breathed, “if I could only lay my hands on him.”

But when she did, at last, lay hands on him, it was not in the way she looked for, as she sat rocking up and down, waiting for him to come home again.